The Raya Sarkar Post

Harvey Weinstein sexual misconduct case has had numerous fall outs.  One of this was a Facebook post by Raya Sarkar, a law graduate student at the University of California, Davis.  She named two Indian academicians accused of sexual misconduct and then invited other victims to send her the names of Indian academicians who have sexually harassed them.  Not being on Facebook, I did not see this post.  But it caught my attention today when I saw that prominent feminists have put out a statement against Raya Sarkar.

Curious, I searched out the list and scrolled down through it.  The following are my thoughts:

1. The list contains names of mostly social scientists.  There are no scientists in that list. I am not surprised. The science students are not brave enough to name their professors. Their career (read: future grants and positions) are dependent on their professors.

2.  After reading the names I was also not surprised by the statement put out by the prominent feminists.

3. One of the questions asked or suggestion proffered is that the victim should use the institutional mechanism available to them to complain against the alleged harasser. I agree that would be the wisest course. However, the reality is different. Where the powerful are concerned, no action will be taken and in this case, all attempts will be made to shield/protect the harasser.  Instead, the victim will be shamed.  May be this is one of the reasons that these victims have chosen to speak out in this way.

4. The institutions- even the courts- have not really given any solace to the victims that their voice will be heard and justice will be done. In case of Mahmood Farooqui, the Delhi HC let him off by saying that a feeble No can mean yes.

5.That said, the major problem is that it names the name but no explanation is offered.  No chance is given to the alleged harasser to explain his stance.  That is really worrisome.  One of the names on the list shocked me.  Why did the person name him?  Is there any truth?  Who investigates?

I do not know what will be the outcome of this list or what Raya Sarkar hopes to achieve.  All I know is that the list has left me deeply disturbed.

I will just end this with a personal anecdote.  When I worked for a company in Bangalore, a girl intern approached me. She was deeply upset.  Her supervisor was mentally abusing her- basically telling her that he does not like to hire women because they are insincere and they do not work. They always make excuses as to why they cannot stay late and if some body talks to them harshly, they will start crying.  I went to the HR and told her that irrespective of the position the man holds, he has no right to harass anyone.  Next thing I knew- I was pushed into resigning from the company.

Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond

It all began with an observation I made to my brother: Why did India lag behind so much in scientific advancement?  And my brother who can generally be relied to answer such questions told me to read Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond.  At least it will partially answer your question, he said.

Funnily enough the book begins with a similar conversation that Jared Diamond has with a New Guinea citizen. 

Diamond's hypothesis is that the nations where agriculture flourished along with domestication of cattles became more technologically advanced as compared to the other parts of the world.  Agriculture began in the Fertile crescent and spread into modern day Europe as well as into India.  This was facilitated, of course, by the availability of wild plants that could be easily domesticated.  The spread was across the latitude where the temperature was uniform and thus, plants domesticated in one area could be grown in another area.  In contrast, the availability of such wild plants in American Continent was less and further, after domestication of few available plants, the spread was slow because it had to move across the longitude. There as a greater variation in climate making the spread slow. 
He uses the same argument to explain why domestication of animals happened much earlier in the Fertile crescent as opposed to the other continents.  And then he explains how domestication led to human diseases like small pox that could decimate populations not exposed to these germs.

This is the basis of the entire book. He uses this argument to explain the spread of Europeans to America, Australia, and Africa.   He also acknowledges, fleetingly, that some cultures were more open to innovation and ideas while some cultures that were open to innovation initially became more closed later.

If you read the book you get the feeling that human intention had no role to play in the colonization process.  And that left me with a dissatisfied feeling. Surely, it is much more complicated than a simple explanation of how agriculture and domestication of cattle led to the colonization of almost the entire world by the Europeans by 19th century.  Partly yes.   Development of agriculture and domestication of cattle led to the formation of cities and complicated governments.  However, there was also human agency at hand and it was not all that passive as Jared Diamond portrays in the book.  

Trawling through the net I learnt that a later book by Jared Diamond explored the human angle.  I do not know whether I will read it or not. For the time being, it is on the list of books that I should read.